


All Heroes Fall Sometimes

by isos_duke



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7377817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isos_duke/pseuds/isos_duke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Overwatch crew receives a coded signal for help in the desolate lands of the Mojave Desert, Hana "D.Va Song becomes separated from the group and found by a pair of Junkers.  What happens as they work together and learn more about each other?  The Overwatch team is scrambling to try and find their missing teammate.  Will they find her?  What happens if they do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Call

The low muffled thump of bass and the snapping sounds of gum came from the far side of the room and on the other, a disgusted ‘tsk’ noise came from the dark haired woman that leaned with her back against the island in the kitchen, her back clearly to the duo causing the “ruckus” that seemed to be bothering her. A deep rumbling laugh seemed to resound if only to tease the annoyed woman. “They’re children, Satya,” the larger, older man said as he leaned against the counter beside her, looking out into the living room.

Things were a bit quieter than usual, though it probably had something to do with the fact that Lucio had started getting used to the game Hana had introduced to him days earlier. The old man would never tell, but the boy had many sleepless nights trying to be a proper opponent for the small brunette. The two were engrossed in some game Reinhardt wasn’t able to name, though it could have been a “game from the dinosaur age”, as Hana liked to put it, and he still wouldn’t have been able to name it. Between the small space separating the two was a small speaker playing music from one of Lucio’s last albums before he had joined Overwatch. It had taken some time, but the group finally got the two youngsters under control and at least humoring them as far as keeping the volume down a bit.

The dark skinned woman, Satya, let out an annoyed sigh as her eye roll was accompanied by a slight head roll as she said, “They could be doing something productive.” Her arms were crossed under her chest to accentuate her annoyance in the whole situation. Reinhardt, as well as the others were more than aware of how Satya’s and Lucio’s pasts were intertwined and that, even though they both served with Overwatch, they still didn’t see eye-to-eye.

“Well, geeeez Sym, ya gotta lighten up, ya?” Lena said as she pulled herself on a counter on the other side of the kitchen, it was something that drove Satya mad, but the shorted haired brunette didn’t seem interested in breaking the habit. “We’re all putting our lives on the line to give people some “better world”, that’s what you’re always going on about, ain’t it?” The woman ignored the comment as Hana’s laughter started to ring loud and clear as a bell.

“What?! No! How did you do that?” A clearly flustered Lucio said, his controller clattering to the ground as he ran his hand over his head, scratching one side as his confused look faded to an endearing smile as he looked over at the woman. 

“That will have to wait till later,” another deep voice came as the soft padding on the ape-feet of suited gorilla came out from a dimly lit hallway. Unlike the others, Winston was in full gear and Lena was quick to pick up on this. Zipping over to the Gorilla, she placed her hands on his shoulder while excitedly asking,

“Did we get a ping? We goin’ in?” Winston cast a slow gaze towards the woman, knowing that no matter how he gave the message, her reaction would be the same. He then looked to the others whom had turned their full attention to him.

“There’s been hostile Omnic threat expanding in the deserts of North America, we’ve received an encrypted request for help.” The Scientists didn’t even so much as flinch as Lena threw her arms up and excitedly announcing, “Alright, let’s get this show on the road!” Then like that, she was gone. The others seemed quite anxious to get back into the field as well as they made their way to their respective quarters to prepare.

Hours later, the group was loaded up in a plane and making their way halfway across the world. Winston was once again before the group, Mercy standing nearby as he addressed everyone. “Ok, team,” he started off to quiet everyone down. “We’re going to be going hot. There have been reports of multiple conflicts at smaller settlements bordering the Mojave Desert.”

“Pocket healer?” The whisper came in the woman’s ear and a smile grew across her face as she turned to look at Lucio.

“Pocket healer,” she replied as the two high-fived, which brought a stern throat clearing from the winged woman at the front. D.Va and Lucio were quick to avoid Mercy’s scolding gaze as Winston continued explaining how things would go down.

The plane flew lowered towards the ground as close as it could in the hail of bullets as the bay doors opened allowing the heroes to jump out. Reinhardt’s shield was quick to go up, as was D.Va’s defense matrix. “Aye, these guys are much smaller than last time,” Tracer said as she and the rest of the team took advantage of the shields to return fire to the smaller bots before them.

“That doesn’t mean you should let your guard down,” Winston yelled over the fire before jump packing over the two armored tanks, his tesla cannon slicing through the mechs that now surrounded him.

The combat, oddly, was short lived. As Winston and Zarya started to cut down omnics with their rifles, Soldier 76 firing upon those that were working on surrounding them, it didn’t take long before the robots turned and began to retreat.

Reinhardt lowered his shield as the omnics started putting some distance between them. “Well, that’s odd,” he said, his voice both muffled and slightly echoed from the inside of his helmet. “If they run when they’re attacked, why the call for help?”

D.Va grit her teeth as she glared at the bots, her thumbs brushing over a pair of familiar buttons on the Meka’s flight sticks. “Not so fast,” she yelled as her boosters engaged, dust and sand kicking up in a thick cloud as she blasted forward.

“What?! D.Va!” Lucio yelled after her, though even with his speed, he would not have been able to catch up to her. Tracer was quick to grab him before he could try and take off after her and it was a good thing she had for as she pulled him back, the ground shook as a massive mech landed before the group.

With clenched teeth, Zarya turned her weapon towards the massive omnic, it would definitely be a long fight and quite honestly, they were probably going to be lucky to survive this one. “They weren’t retreating, they were letting this one take over,” she growled as her partical cannon let loose, drawing the robot’s attention.

“Head in the fight Lucio,” Tracer said, tugging his arm slightly. “We’ll go after D.Va once we take care of this, ‘kay?” She then zipped off to aid in the assault. 

Even with her boosters, the omnics managed to somehow vanish from her sight. Landing, she looked around, the cloud she had kicked up preventing her from seeing just how far she had gone. “So, you wanna play this game, huh?” She asked as she moved around a rock formation, trigger fingers lighting pressed over the triggers for her fusion cannons.

The small robots were there, watching her when she rounded the corner and opened fire upon her at once. “Defense matrix activated,” she called out, more out of habit at this point. “Boosters engaged,” she then said as she took to the air, flying up and around the bots before opening fire upon them. In moments, the omnic bots lay in shambles on the desert floor. “Were you supposed to be a challenged,” she said to their mangled parts as she shook her head.

The ground lurched suddenly beneath her, her mech losing stabilization for a moment as it started to stumble. Fighting to get the mech to right itself, D.Va tried to turn the suit to see what had caused the quake to begin with, “What the--” A thick cloud of smoke had kicked up around her, but through that cloud, she would make out metal, but what? There hadn’t been anything there before.

Her eyes trailed up through the cloud, up and up some more; it was a massive leg. Her thumbs quickly went back to her defense matrix, but it was still recharging and it wouldn’t have saved her mech from the blasts that rained down to the rock wall behind her, collapsing over the Meka.

D.Va’s arms quickly wrapped around her head, both in an attempt to protect herself and to try and block out the grotesque groaning and crunching of metal that came from her Meka as the weight of the rock threw it to the ground, crushing down on it.

As the sound started to settle, the brunette opened her eyes again, looking around her. Through her now cracked pilot window, she could still make out sun light through the dust, debris and rocks. “I’m too young to die,” she told herself as her hands wrapped around the flight sticks once again. Thrusting them forward, the mech groaned under the weight of rock. Thumbs slamming down on the booster buttons, the rocks began to blast away from the force of the jets.

The Titan Omnic wasn’t blind to this action and soon more shots rang out, the sound of crumbling rock coming soon after. The rocks once again pummeled the already damaged mech, its safety structure no longer able to fully support the crushing weight of the rock. 

D.Va couldn’t even get a yell out before the screen flashed those familiar red symbols “Emergency Ejection” flashed on the screen, for only a moment before the screen faded, everything else going black with it.

Movement. She could hear the rocks moving and impulsively twitched as though she were going to get away from yet another fall of them; but, as she moved, her body was wracked with pain. Voices, then she heard voices but they weren’t familiar, nor did they sound all that friendly.

“Ey, ey Roadie, look at this, ya think it’s alive?”

Then everything faded away once again.


	2. Wakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> D.Va finds herself separated from the Overwatch team, in an unknown area and with two strange and frightening Junkers.

A splitting pain ripped through her head, almost as though she felt like she were going to be torn in two. D.Va’s hands quickly found their way to the top of her head, holding it tightly like her strength alone was the only thing holding herself together at that point. A seething noise, like a hiss, came from between her teeth. There was a clattering sound from not too far away that made the world fall into place all at once, almost like she had been somewhere far away and came whirling back to reality.

Eyes wide, the woman quickly pushed herself to a half seated position as her eyes landed on a man sitting across from her, between them a fire. He leaned with his elbows propped on his knees, one arm clearly mechanical rather than human. Rather than a shirt, the male wore an sort of ammunition belt over his upper torso, canisters of some kind securely clipped to it; other than that, no other clothing covered the male’s slender, yet toned upper body.

As her eyes focused more on his face, eyes the color of red hot embers and seemed to burn like them peered back at her, full of amusement and curiosity. Blonde hair flared up like flames and even seemed to be smoldering themselves, though how, she wasn’t quite sure. His exposed body seemed to have a permanent black singe to it. It wasn’t until the man drug his peg leg towards himself that D.Va seemed to snap out of analyzing the male and she fully jumped back, though this action brought an amused cackle from the other, though he didn’t move from his spot.

Sucking in a breath, the brunette’s hand instinctively moved to her hip where her light gun was kept, usually. Her hand was met with the fabric of her suit; frantically patting down her side, D.Va finally tore her eyes from the male to see that the weapon was indeed gone, as well as all the material up to her upper thigh on her right leg. Looking at her other leg, the fabric till just above her knee was torn off, though rather than exposed skin on either legs, there were bandages.

Jumping up to her feet, the woman quickly regret the decision as her legs nearly gave out underneath her.

“Aye, aye, might not wanna do that,” the man said, finally speaking, his accent thick and definitely not North American. She shot the now standing man a dark glare, only to find her pistol hanging plain as day against the green tattered shorts he wore.

“And why would I want to do what you say?” She spat as her hands felt back for something to help support her. Her gloves hit a cold hard surface, nothing really out of the ordinary seeing as they were in a cave, but as she used the surface to help support her as she turned, she saw that it wasn’t a rock, but her Meka that she had grabbed onto.

The mech had seen better days; rather than being this sleek pink mech, there were dents and breaks in the body of it. Hoses in the legs were snapped, puddles of various liquids pooling underneath it. The legs themselves wouldn’t be able to support any weight as they had snapped at the knee area. The lovely pink shade it usually was now sported gashes that revealed the tungsten steel color beneath.

It was a practiced motion, her hand quickly reaching for the wrist area of her glove where her mech recall button was. She pressed it. Nothing. She pressed it again and still nothing. Her attention was so focused on trying to either get her clearly battered mech up that she didn’t notice that the man had moved closer to her until he spoke once again.

“That ain’t goin’ anywhere darlin’. It’s as good as dead,” he said, hands shoved into his pockets as he just stared at her, curious as to what she would try to do next. Though, he already had an idea as to what she would do and he had guessed right.

D.Va took only a quick glance at the man before she turned again, abandoning the mech to make a break for it out of the cave. Only, as she took her first few steps, she ran into something else, something large that sent her falling onto her backside, the man once again letting loose a wild cackle.

“Aye, Roadie, ya got some good timin’,” he said as he fell back onto a tattered law chair, the massive man that had returned looking down at the much smaller girl. A scream tore through the girl as she pushed herself away from the man with the pig-masked face. He, however did not seem to approve of the noise as he grabbed the massive, deadly hook from his hip and slammed the top of it into the rock in front of her.

D.Va froze, a look of terror on her face as she slowly sucked in a breath of air, the man before her looking as much like death as she figured it could look. These two, they were really going to kill her, that was all there was to it.

“So, whatcha find Roadie?” The man asked, seeming to calm down from his earlier fits of laughter, his attention no longer on the girl.

The massive man straightened up, leaving D.Va to stare into the eyes of a pig on his very round belly, but rather than being anything to laugh at, that pig seemed to be telling her she was going to die through his beady little eyes. Something was tossed into her lap then, jumping she looked down to see a bag with something in it, bread scraps? It was hard to tell, but whatever it was, it didn’t really look all that safe to eat.

The disgusted look was clear on her face and the man before her let out an annoyed grunt before walking around her, taking a seat on another chair that had been modified to handle his weight and size.

“Oi, what’cho get?” The accented voice came as a near whisper over her shoulder causing her to nearly shriek and try to push away from the smaller man once again, though the fact he was dangling a similar bag near her face seemed to prevent that somehow. “Looks like scraps again, eh?” He then squatted, opening his bag to eat the contents.

“You’re not really going to eat that, are you?” The shock was clear in her voice, though surprisingly the blonde didn’t laugh this time and only looked at her like she were crazy.

“Ya eat this, or ya go hungry,” he said as he shook the bag a big. “Ain’t no bein’ picky out here.”

She looked back down at her bag of bread scraps, conflict showing on her face. They were feeding her? Why? Why feed someone they were going to kill? The gears in her head started turning finally; her mech was there, her legs were bandaged. If she had really looked herself over more, she would have noticed that while much of her suit had been ripped around (around her torso, arms and neck), she had been bandaged as well, even her head was carefully wrapped. Why would her mech be there (let alone questioning how they moved the thing to begin with), why take care of her only to kill her?

D.Va looked at the man who was now squatting next to her, shoving some mysterious piece of meat into his mouth. He didn’t seem to pay any attention to her, even looking back at the much larger man, he was completely ignoring her as well. If she really wanted, she could have tried to get away, it wasn’t like they were blocking the exit, seeing as she knew where it was if the larger man had just come in that way. At the same time, she was curious, too curious for her own good.

“Why?” She asked, her brows furrowed as she watched the man perk up like a dog that someone had called, and looked at the brunette.

“Why?” He repeated. “Ya don’t eat, ya die, makes perfect sense.” D.Va shook her head, her fingers massaging her temple, brushing against bandages that were wrapped around her head.

“Why feed me? Why bring me here? Why go through that trouble?” The questions seemed to please the man as a large smile grew on his face and he took a couple, squatted steps towards her before thrusting his thumb in the direction of her mech as he said, 

“We found you and that thing under a pile a rubble, on top a bunch of omnics. You takin’ those things out, we could use someone like ya. That’s what we’re doing.” He then paused for a second to shrug and roll his eyes. “Well, kinda. And you ain’t gonna be any good to us dead. Now eat and we’ll try ta get ya up and runnin’ again.” He nudged her with his free arm causing her to look down at the bag of food scraps; it was something at least. Her stomach hurt, but not from nausea, no, it was past that, it was the hurt of being beyond hunger. She wasn’t even sure how long she was out, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know that either.

“Name’s Junkrat, by the way,” the blonde spoke up again. Thrusting a thumb back to the far more intimidating looking male he said, “And that’s Roadhog.”

D.Va stared blankly at the man, confused as to why he was even telling her that. He seemed amused by all of this as the smile on his face grew as he said,

“If we’re gonna be workin’ together, best to know each other’s names.”

“Oh, right,” she said shaking her head some before looking back at Junkrat. “I’m D.Va”

The man nodded before letting his legs fall out from under him so he sat on his backside next to the woman. “Well, D.Va, welcome to the group!”


	3. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Overwatch team is recovering from their recent attack, the air is thick with the fact they're down a member. Meanwhile, D.Va is left to figure out just what's going to happen to her!

Three days. It had been three days since Overwatch had responded to a call for help in the Mojave Desert. Three days since they had seen or even heard word of Hana Song, better known as D.Va. Three days and the team was still healing, some still in bed, requiring extra attention. The air around the team was depressing, even though they had defeated the Titan, but a member of their team being MIA was definitely taking its toll. However, none seemed to take it as hard as the Brazilian that was sitting on the edge of one of the empty white beds.

“Cheer up kid, we’ll find her,” the husky voice of the Cowboy said as he took a seat next to Lucio, grabbing him close to give him a comforting half hug. The other said nothing as his head seemed to drop more; most had been avoiding to bring the subject up, but Jesse McCree? He was ready to nip this mood in the bud.

“How can you say that when we don’t even have a GPS signal on her?” He said, rolling his eyes up towards the older male as his weight rested on his knees, her forearms supporting his upper half. Releasing the boy, McCree sighed as he planted his hands behind him before saying,

“Just give it time. You can’t lose hope or we could lose her forever. Winston has everything just about set up so we’ll be able to look for clues to what could have happened.”

They had set up in an old abandoned warehouse, unloading the plane for whatever they would need for remote operations. Winston was setting up Athena, whom was able to remain connected to their main base system, Tracer and Soldier: 76 were assisting him with the set up. Mercy, with the assistance of Symmetra and Zenyatta were aiding those that were wounded in combat; Reinhardt and Zarya had definitely taken the brunt of the attacks after D.Va had left. Parah and Mei’s injuries were less severe, needing less attention. This left Genji and Torbjorn to take first watch to see if anyone had caught onto their presence or if hostiles were making their way in.

Lucio shook his head, getting up and making his way towards one of the dirty windows that overlooked out to nothingness really, it was like the factory was built in the middle of nowhere for whatever reason, then just left to rot into the sands. There was a large parking lot, though the pavement was in terrible condition as the desert flora broke through to start reclaiming the land. Roads connected to the drive, but they were not roads typically used or at least, they rarely saw any cars go by.

He knew he had to shake this mood though, being depressed wouldn’t help anyone. Heck, when his own hometown was literally in the dumps, he wasn’t sad, rather he rallied everyone together. What would his hometown have to say about this sad and depressed Lucio? They would say it was unlike him, this wasn’t the hero they knew. He took in a deep breath, though the air was musty and stuffy, it still helped clear his mind. Running his hands along his dreads, he focused on calming himself, trying to get himself to think straight again. After a few moments, he turned toward Mercy, a small smile on his face as he said, “Ok, tell me what I can do to help.”

Smirking, McCree got up from the bed and began making his way towards one of the doors that led to an outer balcony. As he passed Lucio, he gave him a stern pat on the back saying, “That’s it kid, we’ll get through this.”

 

D.Va wasn’t entirely sure about just how safe the contents of the bag were, but her stomach seemed to be threatening to eat itself if she didn’t find food and fast. Not to mention the blonde, Junkrat, as he had introduced himself, was eating something very similar. The other guy that Junkrat had introduced as Roadhog wasn’t eating anything, rather he seemed to be watching something on some little handheld tv set, some battery powered thing that she had heard of people using, but never really saw.

None of them were watching her though, at least she didn’t feel any eyes on her and from when she had looked around last, the two had been too consumed in what they were doing to bother with her. With a slow sigh, the woman opened the bag that was still sitting on her lap and brought it to her nose to see if the smell gave anything away. That idea ended up not being the best as the odor, not even smell as it was too foul for that, nearly made her throw up. Of course, that familiar over-excited cackle rang out as Junkrat said,

“Best not ta smell it, mate. You’ll lose your appetite that way. Best to just eat and not ask questions.” At hearing that, D.Va dropped her head into her hands; was she really doing this? She didn’t even know where she was, just in some cave with her busted, inoperable mech with these two guys she had never met but one seemed like he was waiting for the opportune time to kill her while the other seemed as crazy as the other was bloodthirsty.

Lifting her head up, she glared at the bag; it would either actually feed her or kill her, living was preferable and to do that she needed to eat anyway. She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, trying to fully convince herself that this wouldn’t be that bad, she just had to hold her breath and all would be fine. Reaching into the bag, her fingers brushed against something that looked like bread, though rather than being soft and fluffy, it was hard but not wet or mushy, so there was that plus at least.

Don’t sniff, don’t breathe, she told herself as she sucked in a breath before biting down onto the hard piece of bread. Hard was definitely the word for it, it had the texture of one of those croutons that restaurants serve that seem to be more like house building material than actual food. She chewed threw it and swallowed as quickly as she could before she couldn’t hold her breath anymore, but that still left her to deal with the after taste.

Wincing her eyes, she braced herself for that taste that would tell her just how spoiled what she just ate was. She was expecting something bitter and sour like spoiled milk smelled, though was she got was that faint Italian smell, like it really was just a big crouton. Her brown eyes locked on the square of bread in her hand for a moment before quickly turning to ask Junkrat just what was brought to them, only he had joined Roadhog into watching just whatever was on the handheld tv.

Eyes falling back to the bag, she shoved her hand in to pull out something that resembled meat, poorly cut meat, but meat nonetheless. Carefully bringing it to her nose, D.Va sniffed it and outside of the bag, it didn’t have that same rancid smell, but rather, it smelled like roast beef, granted that had been stored with other stuff, but roast beef all the same. She could feel her heart swell at the idea that this food really was edible. She hungrily tore into the piece of meat, biting on some of the mysterious hard bread between bites.

“Oi, hold on a tick.” Junkrat’s voice was loud, louder than it had been and it started the woman some as she nearly choked on her food. A warmth suddenly wrapped around her as she felt a gloved hand fall on her shoulder as the male seemed to literally wrap around her as he knelt beside her, the little tv thrust in front of her face with little care to what the phrase “personal space” meant. That close, she was nearly overwhelmed by the sulfur and gun powered smell the came from the male, masking out any other scent that could have been there.

D.Va leaned back some, feeling his arm rest more along her shoulders, the warmth from his exposed chest warm against her bandaged back. After a few moments, her eyes adjusted to the tv’s screen, though it took her a few seconds to register just what she was looking at. As she would have said, the video was filmed with a potato with how pixelated and fritzy the paused image was. Junkrat’s thumb moved to hit a faded button and the video began to play and slowly she could see what was happening, or more, she recognized that smooth polished “robot” that was gunning down omnics; it was her.

“Mate,” the voice came slow, almost as though it were a warning. “Is that you?” The screen was then pulled away as he used it to point at the fallen mech before them. She looked back at Junkrat, his face stern as he looked from the mech to her and she wasn’t sure if a truthful answer was the best choice at that point but he would have probably figured it out at some point.

She was still slow on answering, at least to her, it felt like an eternity had passed as the words she wanted to say seemed to also want to hide from the reaction it could have. Finally, the words came, well not exactly as she would have preferred something a bit less aggressive than the, “Yeah, what of it,” that came out of her mouth. Just as she started to register how bad of a response that was, a smile grew on the male’s face as he tightly wrapped his arms around her bringing an, “Ow, ow, ow,” from the woman as she was reminded once again, of her injuries.

“I thought ya looked familiar,” he said as he stood up, tossing the tv back to Roadhog before triumphantly putting his hands on his hips. “Let’s get ya up and runnin’ again,” he said, the larger man seeming to take the queue to make his way towards the mech. He placed his massive hands under the main cockpit and body of the mech and with a grunt, began to lift it from the ground. D.Va watched in awe; that would definitely explain how they got the mech there to begin with. He moved towards a stalagmite that had been flattened and rested the underbelly of the mech on it.

Junkrat, whom had vanished as his partner moved towards the mech, with what looked like chunks of metal, though based on their markings, those chunks of metal were once omnics. The two seemed to have lost most of their interest in D.Va once again, though this time she wasn’t going to let that happen. A bent metal pole stuck out from one of the various piles of stuff she was just starting to notice. Pulling it out, the pile toppled slightly, which did draw the attention of the other two; with a concentrated face, she pushed her weight into the short pole to push herself to her feet.

“You’re not touching my mech without my help,” she said as she lifted her eyes from her hand that gripped the thigh high pole to look the other two in the eye. Junkrat’s face seemed to light up as he elbowed Roadhog, an annoyed expression coming to the other’s eyes as he swatted the arm away.

“Fiesty and a fighter, we got ourselves a good one, Roadie!” Pushing her way towards the others she added,

“I’m not letting you guys break it.” This of course brought a torrent of laughter from the blonde male as he said, 

“If ya haven’t noticed, I think you broke it plenty well on your own.” A sharp look flashed through D.Va’s eyes as she shifted her weight some to flip her make-shift cane in her hand, hooking Junkrat’s ankle with the bent part and yanking it out from under him. The action did cause the woman to fall backwards, but a low rumbling laughter filled the cave, the owner of that laughter extending his arms to catch the woman and help right her again.

She smiled up at the usually frightening masked man, returning her weight back to the cane as she looked down at the male that was calming from his own laughing fit on the floor. “Don’t think I’m letting you mess with the tech in this thing, I finally got it calibrated how I wanted and you don’t get to mess with that.” There was a look in her eyes that dared Junkrat to disagree with her on that.

The look he returned was just as daring, taunting and teasing almost as he stood up, remaining hunched over just enough for his eyes to be level with hers. “Well, mate,” he said, his voice equally teasing as hers had been. “Ya best be ready to keep up with Junker engineering.”

A smirk crossing her face, she leaned closer to the male, eyes narrowing slightly as she said, “Bring it on.”


	4. Eyes of the Hog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Always the silent and watchful protector, Roadhog analyzes the situation.

The new kid was interesting, after her earlier freak out when he had first arrived, Roadhog hadn’t really found anything she did particularly annoying. Rather, he found a lot of similarities she shared with Jamison. He laughed as she toppled the male over using a bent metal rod she had picked up to keep herself steady; she fell back though and without thinking, he carefully caught her. It was really second nature at that point, having to do it for the scrawny kid that had hired him.

The tall male snorted out a sigh as the woman recovered herself, casting him a small smile, meek, yet thankful. It didn’t take long for Jamison to get back up though and soon the two were in each others’ faces, arguing about working on the mech. He looked at the mech listening to the two before he shook his head and walked towards a pile of scrap off in the corner.

Headstrong and stubborn, that’s what they were. If they continued to compliment each other’s personalities so much, Mako had a feeling that he would be having to chase after two children to keep them from killing themselves. Why the girl though? He fished through the pile of scrap metal as he considered this. Jamison indeed seemed to approve of her killing omnics, that definitely played into it. After what the omnics did to their lands, anyone that would stand against them wasn’t all that bad. But, Mako seemed to know more about the girl than his partner did. Her lands were under frequent attack my omnics as well, to the point that their own omnic military had turned against them, causing the nation to seek out those skilled enough to fight. The markings on the mech and her uniform said enough; she was trained military, fighting to keep her own homeland from being destroyed. The man found that commendable, that she would fight for her lands, it was more than their country tried to do. The bunnies helped too.

Yanking out a metal plate, it made a hellish groaning noise as the other pieces of metal groaned in complaint as the pile toppled slightly.

“Don’t pull on that like that, that’s not how it works!” He could hear the girl scold Jamison, the two not even seeming to notice the noise from further into the cave.

“Aye, aye, aye, no pushin’, I know what I’m doing!” That retort perked the man’s attention and as he turned to see the girl pulling Jamison off the broken leg of the mech before she slowly hobbled her way around it, pointing towards the front.

“You pull on it like that, it’s gonna break. It opens here,” she told him as she tossed the cane to the side before hoisting herself up onto the rock, her back to him but from the way she struggled, Mako could tell that it hurt.

Reckless, he thought to himself s he shook his head as he turned to lean against the stone he put the metal plate on. He couldn’t help but reflect on how being reckless had ended for Jamison, granted, the girl hadn’t lost a couple limbs. She was definitely severely bruised, deep scratches and scrapes in some places and it wouldn’t really surprised him if she had some sort of fracture or minor break. They never stopped her from doing what she wanted though, why? It wasn’t there place and if the girl got herself even more injured, well, that was on her. It wasn’t like they owed her anything.

Jamison moved towards the front of the mech and watched as the girl climbed, his hands on his hips as he shifted his weight slightly between his foot and peg leg; he’s annoyed. Roadhog knew that stance too well, the other took that stance when someone was bugging him, making him feel dumb or that his time was wasted.

Crossing his arms above his belly, Mako made himself comfortable as he watched the two, they were proving to be entertaining so far. More to Jamison’s surprise than his, the girl was right; she crawled in through the shattered dome where she normally looked out of and pushed on the top of the mech. The cockpit was already damaged, cracked open slightly like someone trying to break into a nut, but that didn’t mean that it wanted to open. He watched it open slightly before slamming down again a few times.

“Ya gonna open it or what?” Jamison asked as he peeked into the cockpit to watch the girl struggle with it.

Shaking his head, Mako pushed himself from the rock and made his way back over to the mech. “Move,” he said as he planted a hand on the male’s chest, pushing him away, grabbing the bent metal pole before gripping the hinged top at the cracked opening and pushed it up. Once it was open, he wedged the pole between the top and bottom, keeping it open. His eyes fell on the girl before her left leg caught his attention; there was a growing red stain on the bandages.

Thrusting an arm into the cockpit, he had to fight to get a grip on the girl as she seemed to panic at the sudden action. “Hey, hey, put me down!” She shrieked at him as he pulled her out of the mech by the back of her tattered jumpsuit. He glared down at Jamison like she was his responsibility and had let her get hurt. Pointing to the soaked bandage as he held her in front of him before dropping the girl, forcing the blonde to catch her or she’d hit the ground from a height that would indeed cause her more pain than she was already in.

Mako didn’t care what happened to the girl though. He had to keep telling himself that as he trudged back over to the scrap pile, pulling a few panels from it and making his way back. If she got hurt or got herself killed, that was on her, he didn’t care. He shot Jamison a quickly look, making sure he was indeed doing what he had been silently instructed to do. Once he confirmed that, Mako sighed, shaking his head as he reached up to one of the cracks in the hull before slamming his hook into it, opening the hole wider before yanking one of the plates off.

She was cute, soft and helpless looking, like a bunny. Growling to himself, he picked up one of the panels, seeing it it would be the right size to cover the hole; he couldn’t let her die and he partly hated himself for it.

Junkrat wasn’t exactly expecting the glare that came from Roadhog before he dropped D.Va into his arms, that was another thing he wasn’t expecting. Nearly falling backwards, the only thing that kept him standing upright when he caught the girl was the fact he knew his bodyguard would probably go after him if he dropped her.

Quickly righting himself, he scurried away as he heard the hook bury into the metal, both he and D.Va quiet at that point. He set her down, carefully, at the fire as he looked back to make sure Roadhog was still busy. Looking at the fire, he first grabbed a couple of logs, tossing them onto it before grabbing a wood crate and making his way back to the brunette.

“What was that about?” She leaned forward, her voice a whisper as she glanced back to see what the other was doing, though clearly didn’t have the same interest in telling him to be careful as she had with Junkrat. The blonde male gave her the best scolding face he could muster, but looked a bit more like a mix of confusion and constipation as he said, 

“You gotta be careful mate, ya can’t be doin’ that stuff when you’re healing.” D.Va’s attention went back to the skinny male before her as she cast him a look that said, ‘really, you weren’t stopping me earlier’. She couldn’t take the look seriously either, for scolding, he wasn’t doing a very good job, though Roadhog’s earlier behavior was enough to get her to at least try and be a bit more careful.

“Come on, it can’t be that bad,” she finally said rolling her eyes as Junkrat started to undo the bandages, though they quickly started sticking from the fresh and old blood on the wound. A smirk came to his face as he reached into the crate and pulled out a tan jug.

“Ya may wanna brace yourself,” he said as he undid the top causing D.Va to stare at him wide eyed. “What is that,” she said, her voice hitching as she tried to flinch away though he grabbed her leg and held it under his arm as he poured the clear liquid. She closed her eyes tight and sucked in a breath, though as the liquid poured on her leg, it didn’t sting and burn like she had expected but rather it was cold and only stung a little.

Junkrat erupted into a fit of laughter as he said, “Ya shoulda seen the look on your face!” D.Va shot him a glare before kicking him with her free leg, though as her calf connected with his arm, pain shot through it and she doubled over. He was still laughing as he continued to undo the now water-soaked bandages, the kick not bothering him as it didn’t land as hard as it probably could have if she weren’t hurt.

As a cool breeze passed over her skin, D.Va sat up to look at her leg and it was way worse than she had thought and had no idea why it didn’t look as bad as it felt. There was a long gash from her knee to her ankle as well as a much of smaller abrasions, not to mention the deep purple, nearly black bruise that nearly encircled her leg.

“Is it all that bad?” She asked, a disgusted look on her face as Junkrat slathered the wound in some sort of murky ointment that burned to the touch. She winced slightly as she watched him work, his attention staying on what he was doing as he answered.

“Nah mate, this was the worst spot. We don’t know how bad it is, stitches probably woulda been better but we ain’t got that option.” D.Va wanted to question why, seeing professional help seemed like a pretty straight forward thing at that point, but as she went to ask Junkrat started to re-bandage the leg, pulling it tight which caused it to hurt.

Hissing through her teeth, the brunette threw her head back, hitting it against the rock that was behind her; its throbbing only seemed to dull the pain in her leg a little bit. She hadn’t even noticed he was done till she heard, “Best take it easy, don’t want Roadie to get too uppity.” He then reached to his belt where a canteen hung next her her gun, pulling it off, he handed it to the woman. “Probably won’t help much, but ya never know.” He then moved back towards Roadhog to help him out, at least as much as the taller man would let him.

She looked back at the two before looking at the canteen in her hand. Opening it, she smelled the contents first: it smelled sweet. Taking a small sip, she recognized the taste as milk tea. Taking a bigger gulp she felt something small and round bump her lip, followed by many more. She tilted the canteen back slightly to see a little wall of bobba sitting near the opening and smiled. She took another sip, sucking in a few of the bobba before resting her head against the rock and closing the canteen. Holding it against her stomach, she slowly popped the little orbs between her teeth as she fell asleep, the numbing pain and calming tea taking their toll.


	5. Shadow of a Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Work continues on the mech, but D.Va finds something about the already two suspicious men that shakes her trust in them. What will come of the trio?!

The days seemed to start passing by quickly as Roadhog and Junkrat tag-teamed taking D.Va’s mech apart, under her careful guidance of course. Removing the panels required less work as a safety cage separated the panels from everything of importance. Pink and tungsten panels sat in a discarded heap, Roadhog having apparently deemed them as useless, from what Junkrat translated from the silent fellow. The tricky part came soon after: removing the electronics console. The system was set up to be easy to remove for repairs, not to mention to allow for the mech to break in a controlled way to protect the pilots during ejection.

D.Va sat over that panel now, letting the guys do whatever they deemed the next step of the tear down. From the front, people usually only saw the joysticks that she used to maneuver the massive metal suit. What they didn’t see was two sets of instrument panels that lay on either side of the woman; they weren’t usually in use, just for startup and shutdown but they were the key component to get the mech running again and it really came as no surprise to see that it had been severely damaged when the rocks had rained down upon her. Scratching the back of her neck as she looked at the battered system, she had to give it to the designers of the mechs; they knew how to keep their people safe from expected damage, this was unpresidented but there D.Va was, still alive.

Reaching towards the back of one of the compartments, she felt the hinges that opened the system up to reveal the inner workings and brain of the mech. Junkrat had brought a rusted toolbox out for her to be able to work, clearly there was more hiding in this cave than one could see at a simple glimpse, or even at just sitting in one area of the cave for nearly a week. Opening the box, she saw a large flathead screwdriver; pulling it out, she wedged it between the dented front of the unit and where it would normally open. The top looked more like Reinhardt had taken his hammer to it so finding a lip to catch the tool on wasn’t all that difficult toward the edges of the unit, getting it open was another matter.

The lid creaked slightly before refusing to budge all together; making sure that the screwdriver was secure, D.Va planted both hands onto the handle and pushing as hard as she could, though still it wouldn’t budge. Looking around, she found a decent sized rock and used it to hit down on the handle, after a few hits, the bent metal lip gave way, allowing the unit to be opened the rest of the way.

Once open, D.Va tossed the screwdriver back into the box before digging through it again to find a pair of needlenose pliers. There were definitely a lot of tools in the box, but as she dug deeper into it, the one thing she was looking for continued to hide, at least until she got to the bottom. “There you are,” she said to herself as she plucked up the pliers, beneath them was a worn and dirty piece of paper. Higher up, the paper looked more like a lining, but now at the bottom of the box, she could see that it didn’t take up the entire bottom. Pushing the other tools out of the way, she pulled out the folded piece of paper, that looked like it had been singed based on the color and black holes that were littered about.

Flipping the paper open, the brunette was greeted with a wanted sign that she thought only existed in movies. Staring back at her were two familiar faces, each holding a sign in front of them; mugshots. Both faces had crudely drawn images over them, like stereotypical high schoolers did to people they didn’t like: horns, unibrow, missing teeth, drawn all over the two.

Her eyes scanned over the names: ‘Jamison Fawkes’ was what was displayed on the board held by the male she knew as Junkrat and ‘Mako Rutledge’ in front of Roadhog. Above the pictures was a single word, bolded and in all caps: WANTED. The text below their pictures gave more details as to why the two were wanted:

‘Jamison Fawkes and Mako Rutledge wanted on multiple counts of international robberies, arson, murder and kidnapping. If found, please contact authorities immediately, do not confront or approach these dangerous criminals.’

Below that was quite a large number, even for the ex-professional gamer. ‘REWARD: $25,000,000,000’ and of course there were little eyes drawn in each of the zeros, smiles drawn all around them.

D.Va sucked in a slow deep breath as she read the flyer over and over before folding it back up and shoving it under her pilot suit. Running her fingers halfway through her hair, she stopped, digging her fingers into her scalp as she tried to figure out what to do. If only Mercy had been there, she was definitely more level headed, a clear thinker. These guys were wanted criminals, it only made sense to turn them in though, for all she knew they could have only been helping her to the point where they got what they wanted and killed her, or worse, put the rest of Overwatch in jeopardy because of her if they found out she was tied to more than just military.

Eyes falling to the ground, she saw her dirtied white gloves, a golden button gleaming back at her, taunting. If only that thing worked, if only her mech had just enough operation left in it to blow them up. That would solve everything. She would be free to get back to Overwatch and the rest of the world would be rid of these two apparently dangerous criminals.

“So what part’s the explodey part?” A voice came up behind her, the male’s breath warm on her neck, both of which caused her to jump, pulling her from her thoughts instantly. Her brows furrowed as she looked at the blonde before saying,

“None of it, this helps operate the mech, part of the brains.” With a ‘humph’, the male rocked back on his heel, crossing his leg under the explosives belt he wore around his chest, though there were no bombs attached to it at this point.

“Well that’s no fun,” he said, the disappointment clear in his voice. “What’s the point of having it if it don’t explode?” D.Va’s attention turned back to the electronic panel that was displayed for her as she thought, ‘Clearly intelligence isn’t tied to what they do’. Perhaps she could use that, outsmart them, though she wasn’t sure if the larger and scarier Roadhog followed the same thought pattern as the skinnier male.

Running her fingers through the rest of her hair, she replied slowly in order to keep from calling him names, or worse, “Without these panels, it can’t explode. It can’t shoot. It won’t be doing much of anything.” She had to be cautious now. She had seen Roadhog angry (or so she thought) and she didn’t want to see what happened if she upset Junkrat, for as talkative as he was, he seemed to be more unstable, less predictable. In her mind, Roadhog was just waiting to kill something or someone, it made it easier to think that was what he would do when getting upset, but the other? She wasn’t so sure.

“We gotta fix that then, mate,” Junkrat replied as he rested his elbows on his thighs, looking at the panel more. “Too much work for something so pure.” She just shrugged saying, 

“I’ve worked on it before and as long as it’s not too beat up and I have the right tools, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem.” Standing up again, the other shrugged and before leaving said,

“Whatever ya say, mate. Just let us know when ya give up with that thing.”

Once he was gone, D.Va turned her attention back to the panel, though it was really the main thing on her mind at that point. The units were designed with destruction in mind so they were made to protect what was on the inside. She wouldn’t know how damaged the boards were until she could turn them on (and without an electricity source in sight, she wasn’t sure how that would happen). The lid was toast, there was no saving that but the case was designed to take the brunt of the impact.

No, the electronics panel wasn’t her top priority at that point. D.Va had to figure out what to do with the information she had. She had to turn them in, with a reward that big, it couldn’t have just been fake. But how would she do it? She had no idea where she was, even before waking up in the cave she had no idea where she was. Roadhog would make trips out for stuff though, but where did he go? She wasn’t sure but he couldn’t have been going all that far, right?

She had a plan though. They moved at night, she knew this much since they had woken her a couple times once they returned, not that the two of them noticed this. So, she would wait until they thought she was asleep and leave, then follow them. Staying up wasn’t a problem for the brunette, years and years of late night gaming saw to that. The real issue would be in 1) her being able to semi-keep up with them and 2) not getting caught. She could push herself even if it meant regretting it later, but the real issue came into play if they did end up seeing her but that, she would end up having to worry about if it did happen. She could always make up some sort of lie, it couldn’t be that hard to fool those two.

Forcing her attention back to the board in front of her, she used the pliers to undo the wires connecting to the top, carefully tucking them back through a hole they came through where the main board was, rather than just the one for the buttons.

Working on the the unit took a long time, she could feel the cave start to cool a bit as the sun set, which caused the portly male to toss a few boards onto the fire. She didn’t question where they got them, or most of the stuff and at this point, she didn’t feel like she had to. Hiding out in a cave made a little more sense then, save for the fact that they could easily be trapped inside or even killed in a cave in, yeah, no, it didn’t really make all that much sense.

The darkness in the cave, even with the fire started to make it difficult to continue working on the board. Tucking the parts and components neatly inside, putting the tools away and scooting the items to an out-of-the-way location, D.Va called it quits for the night. Junkrat and Roadhog were very much in the same mode, though for them, it was just stop working and sit at the fire.

Scooting her back down the rock she leaned against, she rested her head on it; it wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but it was better than nothing, or so she told herself. Taking a drink of water from a canteen she had been giving, she watched and listened as Junkrat went on about different ideas he had for the mech. Rather than replying or countering his ideas, she simply nodded at them, a reaction she usually had as she grew tired. Not like she was planning on letting the two equip an arsenal of bombs to the mech, but she would tell them about that later.

“Dozing off” over the next few hours, she could hear the blonde’s voice get softer and softer, often times at the silent scolding of Roadhog. She wasn’t sure how Junkrat knew what he was saying, it wasn’t like the guy actually spoke words, he just gave a look and that seemed to be all the other needed to know what was going on.

Finally, all went silent. Peeking her eyes open, D.Va could make out sillouhettes leaving the cave, armed sillouhettes, which was something she wasn’t quite familiar with but if the two truly had the history that flier made out, then it made sense. With gritted teeth, the woman pushed herself to her feet; her legs were sore, between sitting on the ground all day, rocky ground on top of it, but not walking around as much due to her injuries, she was getting stiff. Ignoring the throbbing in her legs, she pushed herself as quickly and quietly as she could to keep up with the men. She would figure out what they were doing and just what those posters meant.


	6. Coming to Light

It came to no surprise that D.Va had gotten separated from Junkrat and Roadhog. As she moved, she found that she hurt less than she had expected; mostly being stiff from being still for so long. Fortunately, she managed to find herself in the city they had been making their way towards though in her mind she knew she would have to find the two again if she expected to make her way back.

There wasn’t anyone in sight, which would make asking people questions about ‘Jamison and Mako’ a bit more difficult. Rubbing her neck, the woman stopped in the glow of tvs coming from one of the shops in town; the city streets were lit up, stores, not so much at this point. One of the tvs had the local news displayed ‘2:15am’, looking at the date, it was Friday and nearly two weeks after she had originally been dispatched with the rest of the Overwatch team.

“And in other news,” the reporter said before straightening a stack of papers she held, though they were just for show as she watched the teleprompter that was no doubt near the camera. “The string of robberies and arson plaguing the cities bordering the desert continue. Reports are now saying that this is the work of International criminals Jamison Fawkes and Mako Rutledge. These men are said to be armed and dangerous. If you spot these men, please contact authorities immediately.”

While D.Va couldn’t complain at the timing for that story to play while she was there, she made no comment as security camera footage started playing of the two men that she had been staying with, indeed robbed various stores; one clip would play, shirnk to allow another to play beside it until the screen was filled with footage from at least 20 different instances.

Almost as if on queue, the woman heard a familiar eruption that usually came from the explosion of one of Pharah’s rockets, but she knew better than to think it was the Egyptian woman. She turned toward the direction of the explosion, it was quite a ways away, she knew that. The ground didn’t shake very much where she was. Once again she felt conflicted and it annoyed her; this was Hana Song, best StarCraft player in the world and yet she was having a hard time figuring out what her strategy was going to be? She knew what the Overwatch team would say; they were criminals, but those criminals had saved her life and she owed them that.

She was over thinking; with that thought in mind, she glared off in the direction of the orange glow that was starting to rise into the night sky before running towards it. Her leg hurt some as did other areas that had deeper wounds that were still healing and it didn’t help that soon other people were running by, or trying as alcohol was strong in the air around them. While she did her best to avoid getting run over by everyone, she couldn’t avoid them all as she collided with someone, sending her to the ground, the other person not phased and continued running in the panicked crowd.

Wincing at the impact with the hard ground, D.Va started to push herself back onto her feet when a hand was extended down to her. Focusing on it for a moment, her gaze moved towards the owner, just some random dude, his friend with him and while there was that same panic in their eyes as the others, they had stopped to help her. “Come on, we gotta get out of here,” he said, his accent familiar, similar to McCree’s though it didn’t seem quite as thick. The look in both of their eyes seemed to flash to surprise as the woman looked up at them before taking his hand.

Her eyes fell to the hand that helped her up, noticing a design on his forearm; she recognized the pink, the bent knee and that green shield: her mech. These guys knew who she was. “This way, you don’t want to go over there,” the male urged, not letting go of her hand. She had to play nice though, this was a fan, she couldn’t be rude to either of them.

Smiling sweetly at them she said, “Thank you for helping me, but I gotta go stop the bad guys now!” She stepped back and went to continuing running towards the explosion, but was stopped short by the guy refusing to let go. She whipped her head back to look at him; fear didn’t fill their eyes anymore, but something more along the lines of hunger. 

“We think it’s safer for you with us, D.Va,” the one in back said as she saw his eyes trail up and down her body. Brows furrowing, she looked down, realizing that she really should have paid more attention to what she was wearing. The way Junkrat and Roadhog seemed to pay little attention to the destroyed pilot suit and the information she was trying to find out, she had forgotten just how exposed it left her.

“D.Va will be ok, but thank you for your concern,” she said as she tried to tug her arm away, but still to no avail.

“We really think you should come with us,” the one holding her hand said as he gave a firm tug, pulling her forward. This wasn’t going well for the woman; fan or not, she was in danger and had to protect herself. Her eyes hardened as she glared at the male, bringing a mock offended look to his face. “We’re only trying to help you, why the hard look?”

Just as her hand balled into a fist, someone went flying by her head, clocking the man that held her in the head. “Oi, what do ya think you’re doing, ya drongo?” The voice yelled as the man released her, gripping his head and shoot a dark look past her. She watched as his gaze fell from looking just above her head; she knew that voice too well to even think of pretending that she didn’t know who it was. Besides, the look of fear that came to the faces of those men before they babbled incoherently about them men before taking off really gave in away.

As the men ran off, he spoke again, “Got some friends out here, mate?” When D.Va turned to look at Junkrat, she was met by a smug look that seemed to boast how he just saved her. With what appeared to have been some sort of gun resting on his right shoulder he then asked, “So what you doin’ out here? Aren’t ya supposed to be sleeping?”

Lunging forward, her hand gripped the familiar pink grip as she rolled past the male, ignoring the pain of cuts and scrapes likely breaking open again. Junkrat turned to face her again, having not tried to keep her from the weapon, nor seeming surprised that she had gotten it. Pointing the weapon, she shot the male a glare as she asked, 

 

“And what about you? Shouldn’t you be sleeping too?” He just shrugged, looking disinterested before saying, 

“Can’t work if you’re sleeping, mate.” Her index finger rested lightly against the trigger of the light pistol as she said,

“You mean stealing.” That’s when the smile grew on his face as he pulled the gun from his shoulder, falling into his palms, the round objects in the cannister attached to it shook.

“Among other things.” The weapon harness around his chest, there were things strapped to it now, canisters with wires: bombs. Some were missing though. Eyes rolling towards the orange glow she said, 

“That was you then, too.” The smile on his face said it all. Releasing one hand from the gun, she pulled out the flier she had found earlier and flapping it open she faced towards him as she said, “And you didn’t think knowing something like this was important?” Junkrat leaned forward to see the flier in a better light before laughing.

“So ya finally found it, eh? Looks like Roadie owes me.” A confused look crossed the woman’s face as she asked,

“Owes you?”

“Yup, we were bettin’ on when you’d find that. Roadie thought it’d take ya a bit longer,” he said with a nod. D.Va slowly stood up, her weapon still trained on the male.

“Wait, you wanted me to find this? Why? I could turn you in and get the reward. $25 million is a lot of money you know.” A smirk crossed across the male’s partially charred features; the smirk was both dangerous and charming and the shadows that fell over his eyes causing those fiery orbs to burn with a danger that said ‘you will get burned if you mess with this’ seemed more sultry than it really should have. Straightening up to his full 6 foot - 5 inch height, reshouldering the weapon, Junkrat forced D.Va to look up at him as he took a few steps towards her until the barrel of the gun rested again his chest, forcing her arm back until it was only her weapon that separated them. The smell of sulfur and gunpowder filled her senses as he lifted her chin to look him in the eye.

“As I see it, we saved your life twice, mate. That’s quite the debt to repay and if you’re anything like Roadie says you are, you ain’t one to back out of repaying a debt.” D.Va’s gaze hardened as she pressed the gun into his chest harder.

“But if I take care of you now, that’s one less debt I’ll have to repay.” Junkrat didn’t even seem to be paying attention has he turned slightly to catch something being thrown at him; in the distance she could make out Roadhog’s silouhette. 

“Would be a bit difficult, mate,” he said bringing the hand up holding the bag; in it was a pink clip. He then took a few steps back, tossing a bag at her. Fumbling with the bag for a few seconds, she glared at him before checking the magazine compartment of her gun; it was empty. Growling, she threw the gun at the blonde whom erupted into a fit of laughter as he picked it up, hooking it up to his belt once again. “It doesn’t work anyway, gotta fix it too.”

Junkrat started walking back towards Roadhog as D.Va looked into the bag to see fabric, more specifically clothes. “What’s this?” She called out to him. He stopped, looking her up and down and using his gun to point at her outfit as he replied,

“Figured you’d want something a bit more than that, Roadie’s idea.”

“So you stole this.” He shrugged.

“Ain’t like we can exactly walk into a shop and buy things like a superstar like you. Ya really gonna stay on that? You could’ve just asked, ain’t like we were trying to hide it.” Flashing lights and sirens filled the air, rushing towards the building that was ablaze somewhere blocks away.

“That’s our queue mate, we gotta get goin’.” Junkrat then started running away from the woman, Roadhog quickly approaching her and before she could protest, he had her hoisted over his shoulder before chasing after his companion.

They ran a few blocks over, where fittingly buried next to a few dumpsters and a pile of trash was a motorcycle with a sidecar. They sidecar didn’t exactly look safe and resembled the smiley face that Junkrat seemed to put on everything. They hadn’t used it to get to the city, clearly it had been left there at some point. 

Roadhog nearly dropped her into the sidecar as Junkrat took point on the back, his weapon ready. “Think of it this way, mate,” he said as the engine roared to life, Roadhog ripping the bike onto the main road and towards the Interstate. “We ain’t gonna ask questions, think of it as a new start. We ain’t gonna hold your Overwatch thing against ya.”

D.Va looked back at the taller male; they clearly knew far more than they let on, yet here she was only really realizing that she had been told bits and pieces about these two, but mostly just to keep an eye out for them. As long as she had been in South Korea, they had never gone there so there wasn’t much of a need to really learn about them and she didn’t really have much time to just look at stuff online anyway.

A new start? She wasn’t upset with Overwatch or anything, in fact she rather enjoyed being with the group. But, at the same time, the idea of some crazy adventure and living a bit more on the edge? That seemed more Hana Song’s style, not just this ‘play by the rules’ sort of thing. The stealing though? She wasn’t too sure on that, but roughing it a bit more? Well, if nothing else, these two would give her stories to share with her fans at some point. At this point, it wasn’t like she could actually go about on her own.


	7. Honorary Junker

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. After Roadhog hid the bike, the group walked for a couple of hours (mostly, Roadhog had decided D.Va wasn’t walking the whole way and had carried her half the distance) before getting back to the cave. Junkrat had to re-stoke the fire after it had gone out in their absence before they all sat around the fire. The brunette had set the bag of clothes next to her, keeping a careful eye on the two criminals as they went through various other bags they had; it was easier to carry stuff that way they had told her. The next thing she knew, she was woken up by a rumbling sound, like an engine of some kind.

Waking with a start, she sat up quickly, something that her head and stomach protested against. Looking around the cavern, she saw glowing lights hanging around the top that she hadn’t noticed before. They were electric too, by the way a wire connected all of them, trailing towards the front of the cave. Roadhog, or Mako as she now knew his real name to be, was already working on the mech; the panels had all been removed and he was working towards the inner workings of it. Narrowing her eyes, D.Va noticed that his arms were wet, but the most noticable was his pants. Had he really been working so much that he hadn’t noticed he had to use the bathroom? 

No, that wasn’t it for a few moments later a soggy Junkrat was joining the group once again and he looked less than pleased as he used some ragged cloth to try and dry off. His bomb harness wasn’t on, nor was the belt that usually held his canteen leaving his torso full exposed. Even with beads of water glistening on his chest in the glow of lights that hung around the ceiling, his upper chest, shoulders and neck were still charred as though it were a permanent color at that point.

His shorts hung loosely off his hips as the belt that held them up hung from the last belt loops, not yet fastened. As one hand held the rag, ruffling the water from his hair that still seemed to hold some of its upright position, the other held the rest of the items he usually wore, including his boot and the bandaging around his left leg. With his remaining leg exposed, she could see scarring that trailed up his foot to his knee, something usually kept hidden from sight.

“If I knew you’d be staring so intently after showering, I’d consider doing it more often,” that teasing voice came snapping the woman’s gaze back the the male’s face to see those golden-red orbs lock on her, a devious smirk crossing his face. Yet, the look on his face earlier and the way Roadhog looked, something told the woman that the word “consider” was exactly what he meant and not that he would actually do it.

“Well that explains why the cave started to stink,” she snapped back, her arms crossing under her chest as she glared at the male. He was quick witted though, despite how he seemed to babble on end about various things regarding explosions; it was like everything he did was meant to get under someone’s skin, to disrupt things.

“Nah mate, I think that’d be you stinkin’ up the place. Should be water left for ya if you wanna fix that, just follow the lights,” he said, pointing a thumb back in the direction he had just come. Snatching up the bag of new clothes, D.Va marched up to the male, getting on her tiptoes to better size him up as she said, “Seems like a a difficult thing to do when you’re the competition.” She paused before moving towards Junkrat’s gun, grabbing one of the bombs she held it for him to see. “You,” she then paused before correcting herself. “Either of you go back there, I’ll throw this at you, got it?”

“Hate to break it to ya, but you’re current attire doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination,” Junkrat replied with a wink before turning to see what his partner-in-crime was up to. With a frustrated groan, D.Va made her way deeper into the cave she had ever been.

It wasn’t difficult to find where the shower was; she followed the lights for a bit, until she found a trail of water. Following that, she was lead to a small alcove where a bag had looped over a jutting rock; it was one of those bagged showers people used when camping. Setting her bag and the bomb on a dry spot on the ground, D.Va looked down at herself.

Not leaving much to the attention? Her face flushed as she really took in how exposed she had been. Why hadn’t it bothered her much before? It was really hard to say; perhaps because she was too focused on her injuries, or too curious as to what these two really wanted. But now, knowing who they were, she felt herself being more aware of things or at least wanting to figure out what those two were really after and just how disposable she was to them.

At some point they had ripped off the other leg of her jumpsuit; it wasn’t like it was serving much of a purpose at that point, with how many holes were in it. Likewise, her sleeves had been ripped off long before, the bottoms of her jumpsuit riding up to her upper thighs, though they still had holes in them. The top of her jumpsuit had a large tear across the stomach to just below her breasts; the neckpiece had been removed and the back was littered with various tears. Not to mention, at this point the fabric was very worn and dirty, there were probably holes rubbed in that were hidden by the dust, dirt and grime from the last couple of weeks.

Sighing, D.Va reached for the zipper on her back; fabric was pulling from it all the way down as she unzipped it. Undressing, she discarded the destroyed suit to the side before stepping into the cold puddle of water. Holding her breath she reminded herself that she couldn’t complain and it wasn’t like she had much of a choice, if she wanted to clean up, she would have to deal with the conditions.

Poking the bag, she could feel the weight of the water and unsure as to how much was actually in it, she decided to be sparing with it. Loosening the nozzle, the cold water started to pour down on her, causing her to lose her breath at the sudden shock of it before she quickly closed it again. Looking around, her eyes fell on a dirty bottle, saved for the soap that ran down the front exposing whatever sliver of brand design was there. Next to it was a bar of soap, but she ignored that.

Grabbing the bottle, she opened it, cautiously smelling the contents to confirm it was a soap of some kind (likely shampoo). Squirting some into her hands, she lathered up her hair so her hair could have time to soak it in as she cleaned the rest of her body as best as she could with it. Her bandages were no longer being soaked in blood so they came off rather easily. They were fading fortunately, she could see some of them scarring already while the larger ones were still scabbed over, an angry pink-red color around them. She took her time cleaning the wounds, partly to make sure she could properly tend to the ones remaining but also so she wouldn’t tear anything open again.

Having done the best she could to clean up and wash herself, she found a stack of cleaner looking rags similar to what Junkrat had used. Grabbing one, it felt dry, she used it to dry off. Once she was mostly dry, she wrapped her hair in the rag as best as she could before opening the bag to see what she checked through her pilot suit to salvage what she could, cleaning it off before reaching for the bag she had been given the night before.

There was a white shirt, a pair of tan pants and a pair of boots. She just sat there staring at the items for a few moments, almost surprised to see that versus something, well, less. Getting dressed, D.Va tugged at the bottom of the shirt that ended just about her ribcage; it wouldn’t go any lower than that. “Well, it’s better than what I had before,” she said tossing her old stuff into the bag and making her way back out to the other room.

The others were busy trying to force a large metal box out of the mech when she got out, not even noticing her return. Peeking around them, her eyes widened as she saw what they were trying to get out. Running up, she pushed Junkrat to the side as she threw a hand over the box. “Don’t touch that,” she said and Roadhog leaned back, his gaze falling to her. When neither of the men spoke up she continued, “That’s the nuclear core. It powers the suit for the most part.” Her eyes then fell to Junkrat at her side as she added, “And makes the suit blow up.”

The blonde ran a hand through his once again standing hair, that seemed to be smoldering again, the tips looking as those they were embers. Was his hair just permanently on fire? “Well mate, that woulda been good to know before we nearly killed us all,” he said, his tone not joking for once.

Reaching around the box, her hands found a familiar thick black cable and she unplugged it. She had worked with Torbjorn on the mech numerous times, Symmetra having taught her a thing or two about electronics. She ran her hand through her still damp hair until the wet strands wrapped together enough to stop that motion. Her brown eyes feel on shorter male, pointing at him as she said, “Consider that me saving your life, so that’s one down.”

Junkrat shrugged as he said, “I can agree with that. Not like it’s gonna happen a second time, mate so don’t expect to be on even terms too quickly.” She didn’t have a chance to retort as Roadhog pushed her back with just enough force to cause her to step backwards. Eyes locking on the much, much taller male, she watched him as she just felt like he was looking her up and down. His large hands reached for the side of her pants and she panicked, stepping backwards into the chest of the other male. This, of course brought that usual joking demeanor back to the male. “He’s just makin’ sure it fits, mate, he ain’t gonna hurt you,” he said, as his hands lightly gripped her arms, pushing her back onto her own feet.

“Oh,” she said mildly surprised as that mask looked her level in the eyes. “Uh,” she then shook her head trying to find the words. “It fits fine, thanks.” She wasn’t about to question how he knew what to get, some things were better off not knowing.

“You’re startin’ to look like an honorary Junker now,” he said as he too turned her so he could get a better look at the outfit. “Not much, just a bit.” His eye narrowed as he then said, “Oi, those things ain’t permanent?”

“What things?” She replied not sure what he was talking about. He then pointed to his cheeks saying, “Your whiskers.” D.Va laughed at that as she said, “No, of course not!”

Shaking her head, she reached into the skeleton of the mech, pointing out a series a cables that hugged the safety cage. “All of these run from the core to the panels that we removed the other say,” she said as she pointed to where they ended, disconnected at where the cage was badly dented. Her fingers brushed some of the wires that had actually broken. “Without all these wires connected and the core running, the mech won’t move.” Her hand then fell back onto the box where it sat still and cold. “And this one is dead,” she said, the disappointment in her voice.

The Junker shifted slightly as he listened to what she was saying; so, she saved them from a core that wasn’t working? Did that even count as saving? He wouldn’t push the issue, at least not at that moment. “How do we get it going again?” He asked instead. The question caused the woman to freeze for a moment before she turned to look him in the eye.

“I don’t know,” she said steadily. “The suit usually blew up before the core died in it.” Without another word, a massive hand went into the mech, yanking the box from its resting place and tossed it to the other side of the room. D.Va’s eyes widened as she stared at Roadhog, “Don’t throw it just because it doesn’t work! It’s still nuclear and what’s in it could still kill you!” The brought a rumbling laugh from the male as Junkrat chuckled before saying, 

“Mate, we’re from the Wastelands of the Outback, that ain’t gonna do anything.”

Making her way to the box, D.Va straightened it out as she said, “It may not to you, but I’d rather avoid radiation is possible.” Looking at the polished metal of the box, her hair was a mess, probably beyond the help of finger combing it. The bruises had faded as were the pink whiskers that were a standard trademark for her. It was like every continued step told her just how things have changed, just how far away what was once familiar really was.


End file.
